


dry lightning

by kurgaya



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Drabble, F/M, Families of Choice, Hurt/Comfort, Parent-Child Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-13 15:22:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16020668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurgaya/pseuds/kurgaya
Summary: A baby. Minato and Kushina are going to be parents. As the son of an Hokage, the kid’ll be strong, happy, and proud; and as the son of a Uzumaki, he’ll be a high-spirited menace that drives his village wild.Perhaps it’s a good thing that Kakashi won’t be involved.





	dry lightning

**Author's Note:**

> **Note:** To distinguish it from body flickering, I'll be referring to Minato moving via his Flying Thunder God technique as "thunder stepping".

Kakashi yawns, startling himself out of a doze. The late summer heat bakes Konoha well into the night, and though it’s just a few hours shy of midnight, he knows he won’t be sleeping for a while. He much prefers the colder months, the firelit evenings, the sharp autumn chill and the frigid weeks of snow. His father used to say that the Hatakes came down from the mountains, from their herds and the snow-capped fields, bearing the white-furred coats of their ancestors to haunt the forests instead. Konoha’s great woods flourish even in the cold, their colossal trunks and white jade branches guarding the borders of Fire. Kakashi is one of few who prefer field missions out in the snow. (A scarf is another layer to hide behind, another way to kill a man). He’d rather icicles on his eyelashes than sweat pouring down his back, but it’s the latter that the summer gives him, and he groans as he flops back under the kotatsu, shoving his face almost entirely into the fan.

Beside him, Akino wiggles closer, trying to steal some of the chill. He’s a big, furry furnace that Kakashi really should un-summon, but he and the dogs are just as stubborn as each other. They’re the only company that Kakashi keeps after his ANBU missions, although that might change given the nature of his most recent assignment. Guarding Kushina during her pregnancy is both an honour and a headache - she’s loud and bored with civilian duty, and she isn’t afraid to let her ANBU watch know. Kakashi doesn’t blame her for being grumpy; he’s going to be fed up after nine months of this, too, and he’s not the one making a _baby_.

A baby. Minato and Kushina are going to be _parents_. The kid’s going to be a terror with a lineage like that. At least he’ll be loved and well-cared for (Kushina’s bet on a boy). As the son of an Hokage, he’ll be strong, happy, and proud; and as the son of a Uzumaki, he’ll be a high-spirited _menace_ that drives his village wild.

Perhaps it’s a good thing that Kakashi won’t be involved.

He reaches out to adjust the fan for Akino just as Shiba, his four grey paws plodding into view, drops a ball onto the floor. It rolls under the kotatsu and Kakashi watches it go, eyebrows lifting into his hairline at Shiba’s hopeful expression. Akino ignores them both, his little sunglasses quivering against the force of the fan.

“Please?” Shiba asks, nudging Kakashi’s hand. It’s far too hot to play and he’s already panting, but this doesn’t seem to deter him. “I’ll only eat it if you _don’t_ throw it.”

Kakashi sighs but grasps around for the ball. Looking after his dogs is hard enough; he doesn’t know anything about babies, or childcare, or having a stable (living, happy) parental unit, so he’ll only be in the way. It’s not as though Minato wants him around, anyway, especially given Kakashi’s track-record with the rest of their team, and he mentioned as much to Kushina earlier that day; a slip of the tongue, really, when he should’ve kept his mouth shut behind his ANBU mask. Luckily, Kushina hadn’t noticed, or if she had then she’d thought nothing of it - perhaps she even agrees.

He lobs the ball through the apartment. Shiba bounds after it with all of the grace of a puppy, and Kakashi smiles as his ridiculous dog skids into the bedroom and crashes into something. His yelping bark startles a growl out of Akino, and just as Kakashi shushes his _other_ ridiculous dog, the barking from the bedroom gives way to a distinctively _human_ flurry of curses. The flicker of chakra is unmistakable, lightning-quick and just as bright, especially with Kakashi’s sharingan now spinning to identify the intruder, but still Akino pounces up onto the kotatsu and starts to growl in earnest, his trigger-happy weight squashing Kakashi into the floor.

Shiba backs into the living room with his jaws clamped around Minato’s trousers, tugging the flustered jōnin along. Shiba’s eyes are wild, startled, and his ears are flicked back. Minato must have thunder stepped in using the kunai on Kakashi’s desk and crashed into him: Minato’s lucky not to have lost his leg, and Shiba’s lucky not to be _dead_.

“Hey,” Minato greets, eye-smiling despite the dog latched onto his leg. He’s dressed down in jōnin blues, no flak jacket or forehead-protector, but there’s only a few reasons he would thunder step into Kakashi’s apartment rather than knock, and none of them are good. “Pack a bag.”

It’s an order that Kakashi doesn’t question. He’s glad he’s still wearing his ANBU blacks, and he shoves the kotatsu away to fetch his vest. “Akino - bag.” Akino slips away to fetch the kit, giving Minato a cautionary sniff as he passes. Kakashi asks, “What's the mission duration?”

“At least a week, maybe more,” Minato replies, crouching down to give Shiba a pat. “Sorry I startled you, buddy, but can you let me go?”

“He wants the ball,” Kakashi says, pulling his forehead-protector down over his eye. Akino drops the supply bag at Kakashi’s feet (pre-packed with non-perishables), which Kakashi begins to fill with soldier pills and ration bars.

“Oh - this ball?” Minato says - because he’s Konoha’s Yellow Flash so _of course_ he caught the ball when he thunder stepped in. He waves it over Shiba’s nose, grinning. “Is this what you want? I’ll trade you my leg for it.”

Shiba almost bites his hand off, but Minato doesn’t seem to mind. He pitches the ball across the apartment and laughs, far too calm for somebody dragging his student along for a mission at this time of night. Kakashi says as much, probing for the mission parameters.

“Oh, this isn’t a mission,” Minato says, plucking the soldier pill box from Kakashi’s hand. “And you won’t be needing these. Have you packed pyjamas? You'll be staying with Kushina and I for a few days.”

Kakashi blinks. “I - haven’t,” he tries, meaning the pyjamas. “What?”

“Family bonding!” Minato cheers, clapping his hands together. Shiba drops the ball at his feet and Minato beams at him too. “Your dogs are included, of course. The more the merrier! You might want to dispel them for now, though.”

Following Minato’s orders is instinctive, so the two dogs disappear in a puff of smoke before Kakashi can wrap his mind around the situation.

“Great!” says Minato, wrapping an arm around Kakashi’s shoulders. “Hold on tight, ‘kay?”

A flare of chakra, fire curling, and Minato thunder steps them halfway across Konoha. The world blurs from Kakashi’s apartment to Minato’s between one blink and the next. Not even the air stirs at their arrival. Minato taps the three-pronged kunai hanging inside the entrance doorway out of habit, and Kushina appears at the other end of the hall, backlit and seeming to glow with flame. Kakashi blinks at her too; she and Minato are so bright that they could illuminate Konoha alone.

“There you are!” she says, dress sweeping around her ankles as she takes Kakashi's half empty bag. She presses a kiss into Minato’s cheek and then bestows Kakashi with one too. “And you're already wearing slippers - great!”

“I don't - understand,” Kakashi stammers, fingers drifting to his cheek. He is, indeed, still wearing his slippers, and they slide across the floorboards as Kushina ushers them both inside. “What about the mission?”

“What's there not to understand? You can sleep in here,” Minato says, hand on Kakashi’s shoulder, steering him through the apartment. “Look! Kushina's already changed the bedding for you!”

The duvet print is a scattering of shuriken, just like Kakashi's bed. In fact, this probably _is_ the duvet from his bed. Minato may be the fastest man alive, but it’s Kushina who once pranked a village’s worth of shinobi right under their noses. Kakashi goggles at the duvet, feeling a white-hot panic building behind his eyes.

“Sensei, if this is some sort of joke -”

Minato squeezes his shoulder. “This isn't a joke,” he says, tugging Kakashi around to face him. Kakashi turns stiffly, reluctantly, but there is nothing in Minato’s expression except softness - softness, patience, and joy.

Kakashi is none of those things.

“Why am I here?” he mumbles, wishing he’d taken the kunai in his bedroom and thrown it out of the window. He’d like to see Minato thunder step around after that, barging into Kakashi’s apartment with his ridiculous smile and playing with the dogs, laughing and teasing and his chakra a sunny, swirling breeze.

“Family bonding, like I said.”

Kakashi steps away, needing the distance. Minato is just so _much_ , and he crosses his arms over his chest, feeling like so little in comparison. “ _Be serious_.”

Minato’s expression doesn’t waver. He nevers wavers, not in the face of anger or fear, not even when Rin screamed after Obito’s death or when Kakashi screamed after hers. “I am being serious. You’re here because you're my student, but more than that, I -” Here Minato smiles, lopsided, and crow’s feet crinkle around his eyes. A faint embarrassment bleeds in through his joy. It’s hardly a waver, hardly a weakness seeping through. In fact, he looks even _happier_ as he continues, even as Kakashi’s face turns to stone: “Well I - I think of you as my son. I love you very much, you know that, right?”

Kakashi can’t - look at him.

Minato is kind enough not to press the question. “I don’t expect our relationship to change - especially if you don’t want it to. But that won’t change that I care for you. I want you to be happy and safe and -” He tucks a stray strand of his own hair behind his ear. He doesn’t _look away_. “I want to try better, if you’ll let me.”

“Why are you saying this?” Kakashi mumbles. The last person who loved him was his father, and all Kakashi can remember of Sakumo is rain in through the window and a body hunched over a blade. The thought of finding Minato like that is enough to relight that burning panic - his chest tightens, numbness like a shiver tingling into his arms. He makes a strange sound, a cut-off sound, like Sakumo’s last gasp as he drove the blade in deep: or maybe it’s Minato who does, for it’s Minato who lays a hand on Kakashi’s chest and says,

“Hey now, come on. Focus on lifting my hand, yeah? You’re all right, Kakashi, you’re all right. Oh, I’ve made such a mess of this, haven’t I? I said it because it's true - and it is! And ‘cause I guess Kushina wants to talk to you too -”

“Oh god,” Kakashi breathes, shaking with it, and just like that, the flare of panic ebs away. Embarrassment replaces it, and shame, but then Minato smiles so wide that his face scrunches with glee, and Kakashi feels that seep away too.

“Yep, good luck with that,” Minato chimes, patting Kakashi’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s go and find her before I do something stupid again. She won’t forgive me if I upset you. _I_ won’t forgive me if I upset you. I’ve already upset you, haven’t I? What sort of dad am I?”

He guides a reluctant Kakashi into the dining room before either of them can muster a reply to that.

“There's my favourite husband and my favourite son!” Kushina greets, ignoring Minato’s mumble of _I’m your only husband_. She all but slams a pair of mugs down onto the table, looking thrilled. “Kakashi, we don’t have any caffeine in the house right now, _so_ \- chocolate milk! God, I’m the best mum ever.”

( _You’re the best wife ever_ , Minato says).

If there was any, _any_ chance that Kushina might talk some sense into her husband, those hopes are now dashed. Kakashi would say that he doesn’t know what he’s done to deserve this madness (and he doesn’t, not really, not after Sakumo and Obito and Rin), except he’s starting to suspect what brought this all on.

“I can't be your favourite son,” he argues, refusing to accept the drink. Minato has no such issue, ignoring the fact that a twenty-four year old Hokage and war-hero shouldn’t be so excited about _chocolate milk_. (A twenty-four year old is hardly old enough to be a father figure either, and yet - and yet maybe -)

“Why not?” Kushina shoots back, hands on her hips. It’s a dangerous stance, especially with Minato trying and failing not to laugh beside her. “Naruto's going to be a whiny baby once he's born and do I want to deal with that? Nope! I'd much rather have you. And don’t tell me you don’t like chocolate milk - I even made it bitter for you! Minato and I think you're great and we love you a lot and we like having you around, so whaddo you say? You’re staying with us for a while, yeah?”

“I haven't said anything that isn't true,” Kakashi grumbles, realising that his earlier off-hand comment to Kushina hadn’t been quite so _off-hand_. Still, he won’t take it back. Minato has a village, a wife, and a child on the way. Assigning Kakashi to ANBU to keep him out of the way was a good idea, and he won’t begrudge Minato for that. Kakashi certainly hasn’t proved that he can keep his friends and family alive, after all. He hadn’t meant to tell Kushina any of this, but he never expected her to mention it to Minato, and he certainly never expected them to drag him _here_.

“We can't _both_ be telling the truth,” Kushina says. “And I’m pregnant, so I can’t be lying.”

Kakashi opens his mouth to argue and then shuts it again. “That - has nothing - what? But you’re going to be parents and I’m -”

“We _are_ parents,” Minato and Kushina interrupt. Their chakras spark, Minato’s like the break of dawn and Kushina’s like the flash of an exploding kunai before it consumes the world in flames. Minato is quick to add, “If you want us to be,” to which Kushina snorts.

“Uh, _no_ , too late. You’re stuck with us now,” she says, throwing her arms wide. “Come here, kiddo.”

Kakashi doesn’t move. He’s done some crazy things in his life, but nothing that crazy. Accepting that Minato and Kushina want to call themselves his parents is one thing - and they want to because they have, and they will continue to do so - but hugging the Red Hot-Blooded Habanero is another thing. Kakashi isn’t exactly _opposed_ to the ‘parent thing’ but he isn’t thrilled, either, not in the way they’ll desire. He’s fourteen, ANBU, and the reason both of his teammates are dead. For the sake of Kushina and her unborn child, Kakashi shouldn’t go near her - that was his _point_. And yet her arms are wide and Minato is smiling, and perhaps Kakashi can pretend that this is okay, that everything’ll be okay.

At least until the baby is born. And then - and then maybe Kakashi can accept this family after all.

“Hug me or drink your chocolate milk,” Kushina demands.

Kakashi picks the milk.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please leave a comment if you wish :)


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